Óscar de Buen López de Heredia, Engineer

Abstract

Architcture must be a socially responsible discipline able to handle plastic and technical knowledge in a harmonical, balanced way. Nevertheless, it is common that nowadays investors impose mercantile criteria that produce poor quality in the accomplishment of building works. Óscar de Buen was born on July 20th, 1925, in Salamanca, Madrid, into a family of different traditions. The De Buen family underwent fight"s violence in Madrid, reason why they moved to Barcelona. Later the pro-Franco advance forced them to take asylum in France. When World War II began, the family traveled to Morelia, Mexico, in the early 1940"s. Oscar could not conclude his high school studies in Morelia due to a student movement in 1943, year when he traveled to Mexico City to finish his cycle at the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria (National Preparatoru School). In spite of his land uprooting, those crossroads gave him boldness and character. It was then that he decided to study engineering and entered the Escuela Nacional de Ingenieros (National School of Engineers) at the antiguo Colegio de Minería, and began working at Mexico City"s Government. Oscar contracted polio during the last year of his degree and although it affected his mobility, it did not interrupt his projects. Already out of school, he joined Macomber de México, S.A., company dedicated to steel structures. One of his more important works was the Auditorio Nacional"s (National Auditorium, formerly Municipal) structural design and construction, the same as his thesis subject to obtain his degree in 1954. Shortly before he had started as a Constructions Stability teacher at his school. When de Buen began his professional career, during Miguel Alemán"s presidential period, cities grew in a vertiginous way; a fertile field for architects and engineers. In that current situation, in 1957 Óscar de Buen, Félix Colinas and Melchor Rodríguez Caballero decided to open an office dedicated to structural design: Colinas, De Buen y Rodríguez. From 1960, De Buen himself headed "Colinas de Buen, S.A.", one of the most outstanding companies in its field. Engineer De Buen starts with the premise that investigation in engineering must create a solution for a real problem; the research findings will become useful to solve other problems. For that reason, he has been a man of his time and his work has conserved validity. A multidisciplinary engineer must always be alert to changes around him and propose suitable solutions. In addition, the country has not stopped and the engineers will remain necessary "as long as there is something to build" and he affirms: "It is necessary to build another Mexico." Between main works involved in his structural design by the "Colinas - De Buen" company, it is worth pointing out: the "umbrella" in Museo Nacional de Antropología (National Museum of Anthropology), the Estadio Azteca, the new building for the Lotería Nacional (Mexican Lottery), the Volkswagen warehouse in Puebla, Oaxtepec"s holiday resort, Palacio de los Deportes (Sports Palace Dome), the Torre Ejecutiva Pemex, a tempering plant in Lázaro Cárdenas iron and steel sector in Michoacán, the new Basilica of Guadalupe and the recently built tower for the Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores (Secretary of Foreign Affairs).